Thursday, July 05, 2012

It's that time of year again. The time of year when Chicago turns into a sauna for about two weeks. Everyone complains that it is too hot to move or function and we get all sorts of humidity jokes and comments about frying eggs outside and that sort of thing. Personally, I love it. Not the egg jokes, though. Those get old.

See, I'm the sort that would rather be too hot than too cold. When it's too cold, I get panicky. When it's too hot, it's like an excuse to sit still and read a book and eat ice cubes (or ice cream or popsicles or watermelon or whatever). There is an odd calm about being too hot for me. It makes us all slow down a bit. And as Chicago is a bit cold for my taste much more of the year than it is too hot for my taste, I treasure these sweltering couple of weeks when it's too hot to sleep. I refuse to put in an air conditioner (even though my cat would probably appreciate it) because my skin needs a chance to stock up on warm before the thermometer plummets and we're back to talking about wind chills instead of heat indices.

I will admit, though, that when it is too hot to sleep, I don't sleep well and my brain function becomes somewhat impaired. Which is why this particular blog entry is going to be somewhat disjointed. Sorry about that.

One of my cousins is getting married on Saturday. I tell you this, because it will factor into the random story I am about to tell which will lead to what motivated me to post today in the first place. It is also important to note that the cousin getting married has a younger sister who is not getting married anytime soon (to the best of my knowledge) and that these cousins are from the same side of my family as several other cousins, many of whom are married and a couple of which are not.

So I had a dream last night that I was going to my cousin's wedding. Except the cousin who is actually getting married was not there. One of my cousins who is already married was there re-marrying her wife, wearing a really sassy, flattering white dress. I, too, was wearing a sassy, flattering white dress, but for some reason, nobody seemed to mind. Meanwhile, the sister of the cousin who is actually getting married but was not present in my dream, was having her engagement party in the back row of the church. Which might have just been a room at the YMCA or something. And by "engagement party," I mean she was opening "Congratulations on your engagement" cards while sitting in the back row. She had to sort of scramble them up when it was time to go participate in her sister's wedding. Which was not her sister's wedding, but her cousin's remarriage to the woman she is already married to.

And the odd thing about this dream (because apparently, it wasn't strange enough to begin with) is that while I was dreaming it, I was fully aware of how hot and humid it was in my bedroom and how unsatisfying the rest I was getting felt. I woke up thinking I was very not rested and wouldn't it be nice to spend the entire day in my bed, but then I remembered the dream and realized I must have gotten some decent sleep if I got to a dream state, right?

So in my morning crankiness, in my toasty warm apartment, I decided it was too hot to blow dry my hair, so I pulled it back in two barrettes. And my right eye decided it would have none of this whole "contact lens" thing today, so I put on my thick-rimmed black-framed eyeglasses. My legs didn't want anything to do with "pants," so I threw on a sort-of pencil skirt that I have and a black tank top (my little black sweater is currently living at my office so I can look office-appropriate when I get there, but be comfortable on the commute). And my feet couldn't handle the thought of socks, so I slipped on a pair of ballet flat sneakers that kind of look like two-tone wing-tip shoes. All in all, I left the house feeling rather like a schlub. Hair not done. Eyes not done. Sort of the minimum amount of clothing I could get away with wearing to the office. There was almost no effort put into my physical appearance today on account of the heat.

But the funny thing is, as I was walking in to the office, I caught a glimpse of myself in a window and realized that in certain circles, my outfit today would qualify as adorkable. All I'm really missing is bright red lipstick and I could give Monti on Master Chef a run for her money. I certainly don't look as schlub-ish as I originally thought I did, and I oddly don't look like someone who just recently completed another trip around the sun. Looking at me, you'd probably not guess my number of revolutions around the sun correctly. So yeah. What started out as an odd day with an odd dream and an odd outfit turned into something kinda sorta cute. Can I be on "New Girl" now as Jess' sister or something?